College – Issue 31

“Pulling together a group of talented people to work together has more impact than if they stayed in their silos.We nowwork in a digital age with different types of organisations. If you work alone to achieve just what you set out to do, you have only one vision. But if you create a process for a group of people to work together you achieve so much more.’’ Justin Ferrell

editors to create ground-breaking work. “Pulling together a group of talented people to work together has more impact than if they stayed in their silos. We now work in a digital age with different types of organisations. If you work alone to achieve just what you set out to do, you have only one vision. But if you create a process for a group of people to work together you achieve so much more. “We now want innovators, rather than innovations,’’ he says. “We design an emergent system where the outcome is far more than just from one vision. There is no limit to what we can create together.’’

Kaila Colbin, Ministry of Awesome

The second presentation in the programme was from Kaila Colbin whose talk was called “The coming wave of disruption, the evolution of technology’’. Kaila is the co- founder and trustee of the not-for- profit Ministry of Awesome, is the curator of TEDx in Christchurch, ambassador to the Singularity University and the founder and director of social media consultancy, Missing Link. The Singularity University was set up to hold business training opportunities for leaders around the world, presenting them with world challenges such as health, poverty, pollution and climate issues and encouraging participants to think about how these problems can be addressed. Another huge issue is how to tackle problems raised by the rapid exponential rate of technology. Kaila attended a course in the US and felt she had to share the information with New Zealanders because, as educators and citizens, we need to be able to understand the moral and

ethical implications of the speed with which technology is going to engulf us all. She points out that in many cases, what we think might be happening in 10 years’ time, is already happening, such as electric and driverless cars. Kaila has now decided to co- ordinate a Singularity conference in Christchurch in November. Around seven conferences have been held worldwide and the team is bringing the university faculty here for three days to share discussion about the convergence of technology.

Before this summit in November, Christ’s College will be hosting a conference for Year 9 and 10 students called Find Your Billion to give students the idea of innovation thought processes and to give them the first-hand experience of coming up with a solution that could help a billion people. An example is a 14-year-old who invented disaster mesh which can be put over an area in a disaster and will allow people to use communication devices to ask for help, water, supplies etc.

39

College Issue 31 2016

Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator